Page 78 of My Fault

I could tell she was uncomfortable.

“No way,” I said, pulling her back toward me until she almost fell into my side.

“Damn, Nicholas!” she complained. But then she smiled back at Jenna. “I’m not in the mood. You go, though, and we’ll see each other afterward.” Jenna took off.

I couldn’t help but smile. Jenna was crazy, but I cared about her too much to be mad at her for trying to convince Noah to strip in front of God and everyone else. I looked down at those freckles I could barely see in the shadows.

“Enjoy your date?” I asked, unable to suppress my sarcasm.

“It was great, but who cares. I brought you a present.”

I leaned against the railing and looked at her—at those lips I wished I could bite—and a good mood immediately overtook me.

“For real?” I asked, wanting to know what was lurking under that cheerfulness, so unlike Noah’s usual attitude. “I’m scared to ask.”

Her expression changed. Was she getting nervous? Now I was even more curious.

“It’s dumb, but with everything that’s happened, and especially with last night…here. I bought it in a little shop. It was just a spur-of-the-moment thing, but it’s my way of saying sorry.”

Saying sorry?

I grabbed the box and tore off the cream-colored wrapping. It was a tiny black Ferrari, exactly like mine.

“There’s a note,” she said, pointing to the car’s chassis.

In teeny letters, I read:

I’m sorry about your car, for real. Someday, I’ll buy you a new one. Happy birthday. Noah.

It was so silly, I couldn’t help but laugh. Standing there next to me, she did the same.

“I did owe you one, right?” she said.

“I ought to throw you in the lake for this,” I threatened, picking her up and swinging her around.

“No, Nick!” she screamed. “I’m sorry, I swear!”

“You’re sorry?” I said, lowering her slowly and squeezing her tightly, just as I’d wanted to do ever since she’d left with Mario.

I looked around. There was nobody there. Everyone was either in the lake or inside the house. I pushed her over to a tree and trapped her with my body.

“You could have caused me big, big problems. Luckily I’ve been wanting to kiss you ever since you walked through my front door.”

I remembered then what Lion had told me: Noah wasn’t like the others.

I rested a hand on her cheek and caressed those freckles I liked so much. Her skin was tense, alabaster, and it was impossible not to lean down and kiss it, feel its smooth texture on my lips. I kissed her cheek, then the place where her dimple showed up when she smiled, then her throat, coming in close and savoring her sweet skin. She moaned almost inaudibly, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Our lips joined, and a thousand different feelings took hold of me: uncertainty, heat, a deep, dark desire. Between my body and the tree, I felt her melting into me.

Her tongue looked for mine, and when they met, I almost died from pleasure. She pulled me down, and I couldn’t control my hands, which went crazy feeling her all over.

My hands climbed her thighs and touched the fringe of herpanties. My God, I wanted to touch her there, make her shout with pleasure, hear her say my name over and over!

“Nick,” she panted.

“Tell me to stop and I will,” I said, looking her in those eyes that seemed to have come up from hell to torture me and drive me insane.

She said nothing, so I kept going. My fingers pushed aside her underwear, and she groaned into my shoulder. She was shaking, and I held her up with one hand as I pleasured her with the other. I watched her the whole time, bewitched.

A minute later, I had to cover her mouth with mine—I was worried someone would hear her.